The FINANCIAL — In 2012 Georgia received the largest volume of money transfers of the last five years. The total amount of money transfers in 2012 was USD 1,334,513 thousand.
The FINANCIAL — In 2012 Georgia received the largest volume of money transfers of the last five years. The total amount of money transfers in 2012 was USD 1,334,513 thousand. The sum is USD 66,387,000 more than it was in 2011. It is expected that the volume of money transferred from Russia will increase as a result of recent improvements in the political and business relations between the two countries.
Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili said that in his opinion there “must also be a readiness from Russia to mend relationships” between the two countries. PM Ivanishvili had a very brief chat with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Davos while attending the World Economic Forum.
The average volume of money transferred to Georgia has always been more than a billion, although 2009 was the exception. With USD 841,778,000 Georgians received the lowest measure of money transferred by their relatives who live or work in foreign countries as job migrants that year.
“Since 2009 and continuing through 2012, there has been a trend of increased remittance inflows into Georgia. It is thus not at all unexpected that remittances peaked at USD 1.33 billion in 2012. One of the primary reasons for this upward trend has been the recovery of the global economy resulting in increased economic activity, employment and average per-capita income in Georgia’s major remittance-source countries. This, in turn, presumably allowed Georgian emigrants to earn more, and hence send more money to their families in their home country,” Givi Melkadze, Research Associate at ISET Policy Institute, told The FINANCIAL.
Russia, Greece, Italy, the USA, Ukraine, Turkey, Spain, the UK, Israel, Germany and Kazakhstan lead the list of the top countries from which more than a million is transmitted monthly. Russia still remains without a rival as number one remittance-source country as it is from there that 53.4% of transferred money is transmitted. While in December more than USD 60 million was transferred to Georgia from Russia, the amount of money coming from the other ten countries combined was only USD 40.25 million.
“In 2008, when there was a significant deterioration in the relationship between Georgia and its northern neighbour, the share of money transfers from Russia decreased by about 9 percentage points, from 63 to 54 percent, although remittances from Russia have been increasing in absolute value since that time,” said Melkadze.
Melkadze predicts that Russia’s significance in terms of remittances for Georgia will not change. It will remain the number one remittance-source country for a long time as the number of Georgian emigrants in Russia is huge.
“The share from Russia may actually increase in the future as a result of potential improvements in the diplomatic relationships between the two countries. It is, however, difficult to say whether we will see this effect in 2013, as it may take much more time for Russia to regain its status of being the most popular destination for Georgian emigrants, as it was before 2006-2008,” he explained.
On the basis of a national census conducted in the Russian Federation in 2010, the number of Georgians living in Russia amounts to 170,166.
Global research company Gallup estimated that the number of Georgians working illegally in Russia ranged from 333,000 to 1 million in 2006. About one in twelve Georgians (8%) told Gallup that someone in their household was working abroad temporarily — and of those, 41% said that the person worked in Russia. In the same period Moscow deported several hundred Georgians and shut down a number of businesses run by Georgians in Russia. That increased the number of Georgian job migrants in Greece.
Labour migration to Greece started in the ‘90s. It was the first stream of Georgian labour migrants who escaped from the economic stagnation of the country and unemployment. Other popular destinations for job migrants from Georgia were Turkey and Russia.
According to the country profile of the International Organization of Migration, the number of Georgian migrants in Greece in 2007 was 13,791.
The amount of the remitted sum from Greece also started increasing in 2012. Greece, the second largest remittance-source country, has been facing a tough economy as a result of the 2008 world economic recession and recent Euro crisis. The country has been suffering a surge in anti-immigration sentiment during its 3-year-old economic crisis, which has demolished living standards and led to high unemployment. The country has also long been the main gateway for illegal immigrants entering the European Union, with up to one-tenth of the nation’s population born abroad.
The sum transferred from Greece in 2012 amounted to USD 153,864 thousand. The sum tripled in comparison with 2008.
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